Saturday, September 29, 2012

Anjali Damania - Jenny Come Lately

When Kishore Samrite, an
ex-MLA of Samajwadi Party, filed a case in the Allahabad HC against Rahul
Gandhi for alleged abduction of a woman named Sukanya there wasn’t a whisper on
any of our TV channels. The HC dismissed the case after Sukanya was reportedly produced in court and slapped a fine
of Rs.50 lakhs on Samrite. The case is now in the SC. Surprisingly CBI, which
investigated the case, has stated to SC such a woman doesn’t exist. Strange,
isn’t it? The Allahabad HC dismissed the case after the woman was reportedly
produced in court and now CBI claims in SC the woman doesn’t exist. Never
mind. Did you hear any of this on any TV news channel? Did you hear any of it
when Samrite actually filed the case in the Allahabad HC? Nothing! When the HC
dismissed the case and slapped a penalty, Headlines Today only reported the
dismissal and the penalty but not any details about the case. Read the post “Rahul Gandhi-Sukanya case: Amazing media silence”. Now imagine if some member from BJP or TMC or AIADMK or BJD
were involved in the case instead of RG. You can then imagine the case would be
on TV 24X7 for all these past 6 years without let up.

Is it any surprise that even Mamata Banerjee, in her interview to Rajdeep Sardesai, hints at “PaidNews”? Paid by Congress
particularly! Okay! Then there were reports about Sonia Gandhi being one of the richest women politicians on earth by
Business Insider. I’m sure
you’ve seen Arnab debating the
report on TimesNow. No? Or Rajdeep
Sardesai’s interview with her about that? No?
Yes, I think you finally remembered that discussion on the billions stop here
with Barkha. No? Damn! Everyone
missed these reports? Well, that’s our celebs in the media for you; shamelessly
devoted to maligning anyone and everyone opposed to Congress. It wasn’t even a
day since the news of the resignation of Ajit
Pawar, Deputy Chief Minister of Maharashtra, over the massive irrigation
scam that our media found a whipping-boy. One would have thought there would be
news about the scam, how it was operated, how the contracts were given out and
who benefitted from it. Nothing!

Politicians, regardless of parties, are known to dole out favours to
each other. But for the media to make extra-ordinary charges on the basis of
someone’s allegations is stretching a bit too far. They must have heard Arindam
Chaudhari’s clarion call: “Dare to think
beyond irrigation, water, canals and dams”. And Lo and behold, they found
Damania, Anjali Damania (AD). The Jenny-come-lately!
And the target? Nitin Gadkari (NG),
the BJP president. Anjali Damania seems to be a band member of Arvind Kejriwal
who is fighting… I don’t know who or what he is fighting anymore. From a
position of credibility and trust the man now enjoys as much credibility as
Nixon selling used cars.

So what was this Anjali’s problem? Seems she met NG three times over this irrigation
scam and according to her he had asked her to back off the allegations because Sharad
Pawar was a close friend. So she’s very upset that the one man, with a RSS
background, she trusted to arrest all scamsters in the irrigation scam let her
down. And she has proof of her discussions with him in the form of
an SMS she sent him. Damn! This is a warning for all you people out there. Make
sure nobody sends you SMSes; you could be incriminated in any crime of their
choice. So from September 27 it was AD all the way for our media crooks and the
irrigation scam itself was over and done with. While NDTV and CNN-IBN made
allegations along with AD on their channels, Times Now went further and held a full panel discussion. Some
interesting titbits from TimesNow:

Anjali showed her mobile to the world as demanded by Arnab. Then she
read out her SMS to NG as proof of her conversation with him. I can’t believe it was
actually an SMS. She invoked patriotism, invoked RSS bhakti, invoked blah blah…
She read it for nearly a minute or more. Who the hell sends SMSes that long? It
read more like a legal notice than a SMS. Well, I would estimate it could be
something like that. Send a message to make it part of a record that may be
handy in future. She doesn’t have even 1 message in acknowledgement or of any
nature from NG though.

During the discussions AD states she received threatening phone calls. On a single day she got 30 such calls she
mentions. All of that must be to stop her from blowing her “whistle” I
imagine. So a panellist asks her why she didn’t record any of those threats and
she responds with “am I expected to record all threatening phone calls”? Oh!
Now, she’s on a whistle-blowing trip and receives not one, not two, not three
but 30 phone threats in a single day and she still didn’t consider it necessary
to record even one of those? Umm.. routine for RTI activists I suppose. Fine! Strikingly,
she doesn’t even complain to or even inform the police. Does that sound normal to
you? Does that look like the behaviour of a reasonable person?

So the rants began from NDTV, Times Now, CNN-IBN, Headlines Today and I’m
sure all the other language channels too. “Gadkari silent”! “Gadkari fails to respond”!
“Gadkari hiding”! As if all that clearly established his guilt. On September 27
NG sent AD a legal notice charging her with defamation and all her claims to be
falsehoods and untruths. The best headline after this was, of course, from
Times Now (Sep 28), the guys who have already been slapped a 100-crore
defamation damage: “Irrigation scam puts
BJP on the back-foot”. Haha! So from Congress and NCP being the
perpetrators of the scam it is the opposition party that is guilty and is on
the back-foot. But Arnab did pull out a few documents that showed AD had more
than just public interest in mind while tracking the irrigation scam. Seems,
she held lands that would have been damaged by some dams.

As for the legal notice by Nitin Gadkari you have to only see the two
reports and how contrasting they are: TOI
and NDTV. For some reason NDTV doesn’t
reveal the full story while TOI has a little more than the legal notice. Let’s
read some excerpts from the TOI story: (Includes comments by Eknath Khadse,
leader of Opposition in the Maharashtra Assembly)

Gadkari's notice to Damania on Thursday evening asked her to retract
her "false, baseless and defamatory statements". "You are making
such false and baseless statements only to make sensation with the object to
defame my clients. The state BJP unit was the first to unearth the irrigation
scam and has undertaken public agitations...,'' said the notice. Senior BJP leader
Devendra Phadnavis said…. "In the last budget session, I raised several
queries based on the papers procured by the BJP and Damania through RTI. I had
even mentioned that IAC members were being targeted for raking up the scam. In
fact, she (Damania) wasn't even aware of the whistle-blower (chief engineer
Vijay Pandhare). I told her about the letter and gave her Pandhare's number"…
Further attacking Damania, Khadse said: "Damania had taken land near one of the irrigation dams. The govt
decided to raise the height of the dam, following which Damania's land was
getting affected. She wanted the govt to lower the height, but all her efforts
yielded no results. On the contrary, the govt forfeited her land as Damania had
purchased it without being eligible for it."

So, as usual, where it concerns the opposition, the onus to prove guilt
is not on the “accuser” but on the “accused” to prove innocence. That’s our
MSM. Throughout September 28 no channel asked any questions about AD’s lands or
their status. None! Who knows she might have even met NG (assuming she has indeed met him) to
save her lands and turned bitter if/when he had refused! Why isn’t that possible? I
can’t help rephrasing the statement of the Amicus in that SIT report about
another whistle blower, Sanjiv Bhatt’s claims: “There is no evidence that Anjali Damania did not meet Nitin Gadkari and seek to save her lands”. Now let the media twist that one. Well, move over Top Cop, Anjali Damania is here
and she’s the new darling of our media. The Jenny-come-lately!

38 comments
:

Seeing that all the media's horses and all the media's men can't salvage cong-ress's rotten image, the media has now changed tack. To wit, "Sab chor hain". The unspoken message is: it is better keep the chor who has filled his belly than the hungry chor.

Unfortunately for the media, even they are now categorised with the chors. And I, at least, did not need MediaCrooks to tell me that. Just that you articulate things better; and back them with facts and figures

My assesment in this is a bit different. We know that initially the BJP raised the irrigation scam in Maha assmembly. But due to the power struggle between the NCP & Congress, the Congress started using the irrigation scam against the NCP. This led to Ajit pawar's resignation. Now it seems the Congress didn't want the BJP to take any political advantage of this NCP-Congress rivalry, hence they used Anjali Damania & MSM to for maligning Gadkari who was to be re-elected as President. Strange Circus !!!

* secular arnab did not object to anjali damania producing a quote from the RSS. i am suprised arnab goswami did not rush to digvijay singh to get a quote on anjali damania's anit-national activities...(seem anjali had some past association to RSS)

* actually it is quite possible that anjali damania met nitin gadkari. however, i suspect, nitin gadkari (while fully knowing that a scam was brewing and bjp legislators were already on the job) must have tried to mollify anjali damania given his stature and his current role of responsibility as a national president and am sure he did not want to take on sharad pawar directly on this since differences between uncle and newphew were already known at that point in time (to those who know maharashtra politics). the irrigation scam actually is ajit pawar's own making and his reputation was known among all major EPC contractors (and thats why you do not see a L&T Engineering bidding for those projects). anjali damania's subsequent attitude on TV is almost like a recalcitrant child who did not get her way with nitin gadkari despite common faith and she seems to have willingly allowed herself to get carried away by media, allowed to be used and get her 2 minutes of fame. anjali in all probability has quoted nitin gadkari out of context and we know that arnab goswami is not stupid to let her show that sms - he also knows that this one-way communication is frivilous at best. but then arnab saw the opportunity to please his pay masters as usual..and anjali damania fell into the trap. quite a shame I must say anjali..

* i dont doubt anjali damania's intention. she in her profession has take a stand to see that she does not encourage corrupt practices...so i do admire her..but the problem with most activists today is that they also see MSM as a medium to be used and abused, a ticket to fame and recognition, to subvert personal truth and build their image..MSM naturally is overjoyed at their stupidity as much as it is happy with BJP's inability to see through the MSM plot..

A request - you should cover the arun shourie interview by nidhi razdan (another bimbo) and the follow-on panel discussion. How NDTV twisted arun shourie's comment and made BJP look like an ass..

Also sachin pilot went on a rant on NDTV the other day as to how congress is a 143 year old part which fought for the country's independence....and all that humbug..would love to see your views on how congress became the personal property of the Nehru clan...

I too watched this debate and whenever she said she has evidence,i was very eager to know but when she showed a SMS as a evidence i was shocked. How come MSM allows a single SMS that too sent by her as a valid document to talk against National party cheif.If this was the case Subamanian swamy has anynumber of allegations against 2Gs(Rahulji,Soniaji)with proofs even supreme court would accept.

The double standards in media is well known. Most people I know, who regularly used to watch TV news earlier have stopped watching it completely. Though they have short term gains, ultimately they will not survive. In coming years, there will be more and more such blogs who will expose the hypocrisy in MSM.

I am more disappointed with BJP why does not these guys just tell the MSM the way MAMTA has stung Rajdeep Sardesai . Just last night on #LRC Rajiv Pratap Rudy was referring to BJP not being Goody Goody any more and Nidhi was asking wht this goody -2 is all about? I wish BJP now stop being goody-2 to all these paid media and tell them on their face like Mamta did they are on payroll of congress .

When we tell these celeb anchors on social sites that they are on payroll of congress , they block us, call us trolls, internet hindus, followers of NaMo who abuse paid media and accuse them of bias and blah blah.. Now why dont they call Mamta troll and block her .Why dying to get her interview . I was impressed with Dr Amit Mitra of TMC and the way he accused each of these celeb anchors for their bias .That is the way for BJP and its spokesperson who appear on TV .Avoid Prakash Javedkar, Sudhir Kulkarni,Chandan Mitra or likes .. Send instead Rajiv Rudy,Ravishankar Prasad , Smriti Irani,Meenakshi lekhi,Nirmala Sitaraman,Piyush Goyal. Make a core team and stop being Goody Goody ..

Sometimes feel BJP is not interested in coming to Power and getting their voice heard! They dont even seem to try!Dont care for AK, I am pretty sure he has been used to divide votes in upcoming election by Cong same way as Chiranjeevi in AP

Once again, in our media, the debate has turned from massive irrigation scam to power struggle in NCP/Pawar family. Is there any chance for the people of India in recovering those lost money? Can our media help get those money back?

Let us get one thing clear here. The BJP top brass is not clean either. Damania's claim of Nitin Gadkari having talked about his relationship with Sharad Pawar and his inability to do anything is entirely plausible. Just because the Congress is full of rotten scum, anyone in opposition and part of the BJP does not automatically become incorruptible.

Try researching Nitin Gadkari's businesses, his links to big businessmen and the lavish wedding for his son. There are other skeletons in the closet that the media never made much hype about either.

The fact here is that journalists are scared shitless of offending top brass of big political parties simply because the bosses will go after the media house owner with whatever they can. The owner then screws the editor who will then fire the journalist who dared write against the politician. It is an unwritten rule - don't expose misdeeds of the top brass.

As a result, vices of the top leaders never come out in the open. They could be alcoholics, drug abusers, sleep with different wannabe party workers or wives of political underlings every night, be homosexual, go on foreign trips to spend time getting a 'massage', and much more.

This is also why investigative journalism is becoming a dying art in the media, and investigative stories are limited to 'child abuse in orphanage' kind of stories these days rather than 'party chief is worth 5 billion dollars despite no income' types of stories. A small journalist would rather go to the underlings of the top brass and get a bakshish in return for hushing the stuff up. Infact, he will even offer to become the negotiator with other journalists for keeping them silent, in return for a percentage.

The editor will talk to the party media manager and get a cozy reward for himself and complete his 'extra revenue' target for the paper/tv channel owner. Even a media outlet in the pay of the opposing political party will not print stuff against the owner for quid pro quo. Every politician or news media outlet owner has a skeleton in his cupboard without exceptions.

Idealism is long gone from journalism. And unless the current crop of losers who are supposedly at the top of the journalism food chain in India are not cleaned up, don't expect Watergate type stories in India.

Everyone in Maharashtra know that after Pramod Mahajan, Gadkari was the most prominent fund raiser for his party. During the BJP-Shiv Sena rule, he constructed hundreds of fly-overs in Mumbai and it was rumored that he got 10-20% for every construction he built.

Why would a little-known second-string minister of a state cabinet (a mere PWD minister, not even Home or Revenue minister) be suddenly catapulted to the top position of a national party, unless he was 'indispensable' to the party in some way?

In politics, if a politician is well-liked by everyone, including opposition parties and media, it means that he doles out favors to everyone. Sharad Pawar was one such politician who was friend to everyone, from Bal Thackeray to all media bosses, and we know now how rotten, vile and corrupt he is.

Nitin Gadkari, if not stopped, is another Sharad Pawar in making. Mrs. Damania has done a great service to the nation by exposing this man.

Once again, in your attempt to expose double standards of media, you are losing your objectivity.

I too watched Damania's on all channels. Most anchors rejected the SMS as proof and asked her to provide more direct evidence. Mrs. Damania admitted she doesn't have admissible-in-court evidence, nevertheless her SMS convinced me that she is speaking the truth. First of all, she has nothing to gain my alienating all political parties, so unless she was part of planned conspiracy by IAC-Arvind Kejriwal to malign BJP, I see no reason why should would send a fake SMS to Gadkari a month back.

Now, Kejriwal may be shrewd and ambitious, but he is not an idiot to attempt such a devious conspiracy knowing very well that it would lead to defamation suit and loss of face for him and IAC, if investigations prove that she made this claim on being instigated by Kejriwal. Moreover, what does he gain by making BJP president his enemy? I doubt that he is such a fool that he believes that a single allegation against Gadkari would lead to millions of committed BJP voters discarding their party in favor of his political outfit. Also, Kejriwal has never been a RSS sympathizer, so why would Damania, on his instigation, write such a long SMS praising the RSS? It is obvious that she wrote such a long SMS because she was genuinely shocked by what she considers a betrayal.

Forget the Damania allegations, you can't steal Rs.72000 crores of tax-payers money without the main opposition party knowing about it. The very fact that the BJP didn't raise the issue of irrigation scam for so many years is enough evidence for me of complicity of the party in the scam. And this, of course, isn't the first scandal where the BJP has not performed its duty as an opposition party. Whether it was 2G or coal scam or the irrigation scam, we have seen a similar pattern of BJP not protesting against these scams until they were publicly exposed by either some sections of media, IAC or CAG. Only the very naive and idiots would believe that BJP party is not complicit in them.

The post is not about BJP and does not give them some kind of "clean chit" (to use the phrase) as your comments appear to imply. I don't see why the two of you are so focused on culpability of BJP rather than the topic at hand - which is someone going on TV and making allegations and media backing her too. In addition, the headlines from the media would make it appear that the scam wasnt perpetrated by Congress or NCP which is an outright falsehood. By your logic, even the 2G scam happened because of BJP, did it? While an opposition party may be aware of schemes or policies being implemented it may not go into the entire operation of each of them.

Regardless of how you choose to view the BJP or any other political party in the opposition, to offer the logic that BJP is more culpable than the actual perpetrators is faulty and spurious. Sure, somewhere in the post it does say that political parties may be hand in glove doling out favours but that doesnt take away from the monumental corruption and scams of the Congress.

As for the MSM, none of them exposed any scams. 2G owes it to a small time journal called the Pioneer which is hardly MSM. The rest owe a lot to the CAG. Finally, if there has to be a debate on which political party is NOT corrupt, I dont think it would be necessary as none is. Question is who is the worst offender and who has institutionalised corruption brazenly.

As for Anjali Damania, her BS is not just the SMS... 30 threatening phone calls in a day is story only naive idiots will buy. And the story is about her and the media, not the Congress or the BJP.

Ravinar, you spent several hours on twitter making fun of Damania because of her allegation, ignoring the possibility that she may be speaking the truth. My reply was partly a response to your tweets. (now please don't say that I should respond to your tweets only on twitter, and not on your blog posts, since you often respond to tweets of Rajdeep and Sagarika through your blog)

I totally agree with you that media is attempting to deflect the attention from the crimes of Congress & NCP and shift the blame to BJP. Despicable as that attempt may be, I treat Damania's allegations against Gadkari as very serious, because if true they prove that not only all political parties in India are as rotten and corrupt as Congress, but they work in cooperation with each other to loot the nation. It doesn't matter who is the worst offender as Congress has ruled the country for most of the years since independence. If the party president of BJP could so brazenly make deals with Sharad Pawar, while still in opposition, I cannot even imagine to what extent he will institutionalize corruption if BJP comes to power at center.

'As for the MSM, none of them exposed any scams' - I wrote 'some sections of media', not mainstream media and by that I meant Pioneer and too some extent OPEN & Outlook for not censoring the Radia tapes.

1. Your contention that the BJP president makes deals and you cant imagine to what extent he will institutionalise corruption is based more on "hypothesesis" than any factual evidence.

2. I can share with you many rumours about IAC and misdeeds of certain key members that come not from ordinary folks like you and me but from prominent TV panellists. The reason those don't appear on this blog is because they cannot be substantiated or backed up.

This blog does go by what can be established logically and not by hypothetical situations. For instance, many have talked about billions of Sonia Gandhi in Swiss banks. By that token she shouldnt be anywhere but in prison but there's a reason why there isnt a case against her in courts. This blog doesnt similarly carry many posts about her billions either.

Ravinar, it is an opposition party's job to go into the operational details of every scheme and plan implemented by the government. It is why they are kept in parliament, given all the relevant perks, and not tossed out when a government is formed.

It is a job the BJP is failing at so miserably that one wonders if this is the same party that changed India so much within a span of 6 years. Unfortunately, the BJP has become so busy with backroom deals, infighting and backstabbing that forming a good shadow cabinet and going in depth into each and every scheme is less important these days than shooting their mouth off on television, with the media only too happy to oblige.

And why miss the chance of allowing BJP politicians make fools of themselves and get paid for it too?

In fact, the BJP have begun to take the word 'Opposition' quite literally by now. And so they oppose everything, even if the government's plan makes sense, just to try and score points with the dumber voters. Bad tactic. Like in journalism, much of the idealism in the BJP has been sacrificed at the altar of moneymaking.

And while they were respected for atleast believing in their ideals earlier, no one in his right mind has any such misconceptions anymore.

I cant understand certain things about your blog. Ofcourse its well written and self explained. But you always attck those who directly or indirectly target BJP. First it was Arvind Kejriwal and now AD. It appears you are not mediacrooks but Congresscrooks. Whoever will try to accuse or defame BJP will be your soft targets. I agree congress is the worst party in India with large amount of loots and crimes. But its not possible without a helping hand from opposition.

1. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence that BJP is not the party in power in the centre and therefore this blog naturally takes an adverserial position against Congress govt and that is not such a big secret that you discovered. I believe if the media did the same thing this blog wouldn't be required.

2. And yes, Narendra Modi has been attacked without any evidence for over a decade now by the media. And AK called Narendra Modi "corrupt", now if you stand by AK's statement then you better come with some evidence. And you are wrong if you think AK or TeamAnna were criticised only when he attacked Modi. They were trashed last year itself in a post titled "Team Anna Goodwill Blunting". That was long before AK targeted Modi. Maybe you should read.

Lastly, calling me a BJP agent or a CongressCrook would hold as much logic and sense as it would if I were to call people agents of Corrupt Congress because I disagree with them. Someone in the media has also called me a "terrorist". You guys seem to be using the same logic.

As I said, no one has clean hands. What is worse is the role that the scumbags in the MSM play for political sides.

I wonder who fed DNA the story about Damania and the land. It has to be one of the people she was going after. No journalist is actually going to go into the background of anyone to research stuff. Most are simply lack the ability and intelligence to do so. Your top TV anchors for instance. ANd there wasn't enough time to get such information so quickly.

Anyway, Ravinar, my point was that the politicians have journalists in their pockets. Damania won't be making a claim so loudly without some basis or as a negotiating tactic. We will see how this pans out in the end.

By the way, owning agricultural land claiming to be a farmer is nothing new. It will be hard to find any politician of any worth who doesn't claim to be one, or does not control hundreds of acres of agricultural land through benami papers. If the MSM wasn't such a bunch of pimps, they would not have difficulty getting complete details of such holdings.

If dubious links projecting her as a land shark are enough to convince you that Damania has conspired against Gadkari, here are few news stories from my side..

From Hindu..

"Ms. Damania clarified that she bought land first in Mangaon taluk in Raigad district under the horticulture policy, which had relaxed rules of land purchase. Later, in 2006, she bought land from Anil Gogate and his family, who are not tribal farmers as media reports stated, she said. However, after she filed her case in court in April this year, the local revenue officers sent her notice, saying she bought land illegally, and finally in August, the tahsildar issued an order taking her land back. “This is all because I took action against an illegal dam, which was coming up without proper permissions.”

Mr. Gogate, who lives at Kondhane village, told The Hindu on the phone that he was not a “tribal” farmer and he and his family sold land to Ms. Damania, who was supposed to start a project on medicinal plants and create local employment.

Ms. Damania said she bought land because she had a dream of becoming an agriculturist and all her income and transactions were transparent.

"Speculations are rife in political and bureaucratic circles that Gadkari may have turned down Damania also because of his close aide Ajay Sancheti, BJP Rajya Sabha MP. The Sancheti family had bagged several major irrigation projects when Ajit Pawar, who recently resigned from the post of deputy chief minister, was the water resources minister. Many of them have run into controversy. Document obtained under RTI by an activist show that the Sancheti family had committed fraud to bag eight VIDC contracts."

and from the comment on the article..

"Not only that, several projects were also awarded to companies headed by Mr. Mitesh Bhangadiya another close aide of Mr. Gadkari. Mr. Bhangadiya who was later elected to Maharashtra Legislative Council is alleged for massive in appropriation of funds in the Gosikhurd and several other irrigation projects in Vidarbha as shown by several RTI disclosures

There are many other contractors feeding of corpses of farmers in Vidarbha who are politically connected to various parties. I dare the sermonizing bunch of losers especially at NDTV, CNN IBN and Times Now to dig them and their political affiliations out and broadcast them with the same amount of fervour they reserve for Rahul baba's next joyride.

Somehow, I don't think they have the balls to do so. After all, it will hurt their beloved political party a lot too.

Would anyone of you kindly explain why is it necessary to accuse Ravinar as Pro-BJP only on basis that he is asking for any kind of evidence against Mr Gadkari ???Or he being a proud Hindu makes him a soft target???If anyone tomorrow accuses Kejriwal for stacking billions of rupees somewhere would you not ask that accuser for evidence ??? Would asking such a question make you co-accused ???

It all boils down to credibility of the accuser and the accused. Ms Damania is pathologist, an ordinary citizen with no history of crime or corruption, and whose father was a member of RSS. On the other hand, Gadkari has business interests, is known to be corrupt and his close aides have been accused of getting irrigation contracts fraudulently.

Moreover, Gadkari lied by claiming that he had never met her before and later backtracked when she produced the date, time and place of her meeting with him while Ms Damania has refused to withdraw her allegation or apologize to him and has shown her willingness to meet him in court.

We all know that most of the defamation suits are filed by politicians in the heat of the moment and are only for public consumption. I wouldn't be surprised if he quietly withdraws the suit fearing that all the murky details of the irrigation projects granted to his aides will be out in the open.

And please, do not write rubbish about Ravinar being a soft target because of him being a proud Hindu. I detest Congress as much as you and him and consider the party an anti-national mafia organization whose sole purpose is to loot and rape the country. I wish BJP, when it came to power at center, had exposed these criminals and driven them out of the country. But even during Vajpayee's reign, the party signed deals with Enron, with Sonia to not pursue the Bofors case, and allowed the son-in-law of Vajpayee a free reign to make backroom deals. And now that Vajpayee is out of the picture, the party has been reduced to nothing more than a subsidiary of Congress.

It is evident to everyone, except die hard BJP fanboys, that Congress and BJP have formed a cartel to loot the country. Narendra Modi is perhaps one guy who is not part of this unholy cartel and that's why the BJP leadership fears him as much as Congress does.

I completely agree with you in regards with the Cartel formed between BJP & Congress. But please realise the painful fact that we cannot fight the whole world at same time. It really feels good when yound men like Kejriwal stand out from rest & declare war against corruption, but unfortunately such heroism only leads to political suicide in the end. Yes their are corrupt on both sides but you still have to realise whome to attack & hurt when it matters the most. I myself have attended many IAC meetings & support Kejriwal for his daring. But he has been wasting his arrows on opposition leaders including Mr Modi. Another great leader Ms Kiran Bedi very rightly pointed out that if one opposes both the Ruling & Opposition then who will stand with us ???? So the simple point is IAC don't have to target Mr Gadkari unless it have undeniable proof otherwise it would be a waste of your time & energy in this democracy.I will not reply any further as it deviates the subject.

The comments have started deviating far from the topic at hand. Please do note the following:

1. Socratus - Calling a newspaper article link as "dubious" doesnt quite make a valid argument, especially if you are going to respond with your own links.

2. Nowhere, I repeat, nowhere this post assumes AD has not met Gadkari. On the contrary, it assumes for a satirical comment that she has indeed met him.

3. The politics of corruption between Congress and BJP is an altogether different topic and I suggest do not confuse it with the AD episode. No matter how much anyone adores Kejriwal or his team there is an undeniable fact that some members of IAC have divided the nation as much as politicians have.

4. If AD's allegations were just a report on TV it wouldnt have mattered. But the post is here because TV channels made a huge drama out of it. The latest is that AD cried on TV (Headlines Today) because of the counter allegations relating to her lands. Now this is the sort of drama news channels can do without.

5. It would be fair to assume that neither the commenters so far nor the author has direct inside information on all the corruption within political parties. It is therefore necessary to go by what is published or can be backed by some evidence available.

6. Socratus - Your point is valid that the BJP let off Congress on many corruption and other issues when they were in power. BJP's supporters themselves condemn both ABV and LKA for it. Painfully, if the BJP/NDA comes to power again they will realise how much mess is left behind to clean.

Division is almost complete if we can avoid it is better.. But we shoud realize that in our democracy a political party runs a Govt And we already have many.And congress+Media(Septalogy thing) is number one political party who has become looter.Instead of selecting better leader congress is bent on misusing all the institutions for Nehru clan.

so we should defenetly aspire for lesser corrupt and already organized instead for waiting Kezeriwal party who will spoil the party.

Pankaj, aspiring for 'lesser corrupt and already organized' doesn't mean we should discourage everyone who aspires to provide us a better option and ascribe motives to everything they do.

It's for BJP to up their game and prove to us they are competent enough to provide us the government that we desperately need. If they repeatedly fail to so, then it's our duty to shout from roof-tops that we don't want second-version of Congress to replace it. Meekly accepting third-rate politicians like Gadkari will only encourage the party to continue practicing its slimy politics.

I don't care for Kejriwal or his future party, but a party which promotes corrupt contractors to the post of party president while neglecting brilliant stalwarts like Arun Shourie doesn't deserve my vote. Unless NDA selects Modi or Shourie as its PM candidate, I'm not voting for BJP and would vote for Kejriwal's party, not out of any hope or love for him, but merely to send a strong message to both the parties that we, the voters, have had enough of their dirty politics.

Hmm ..... I read this blog form Ravinar keeping in mind for what it is for .... getting educated and to be careful about the the paid media ..... I wish people stick strongly to this point ..... Keep on the good work Ravi .....

I love this blog and religiously read every post, but nevertheless there is a strong pro-BJP bias which Ravinar explains away with "BJP is not the party in power in the centre and therefore this blog naturally takes an adverserial position against Congress govt"

But BJP is the party in power in many states where it suppresses free media which such brazen audaciousness that congress attempts to regulate media (banning of twitter accounts) looks amateurish and foolish in comparison. We already know about the viciousness with which the BJP govt hounded Tehelka when it was in power, now read this report on Raman Singh govt's corruption and witch-hunt against the only newspaper that dared to cover the misdeeds of his corruption.

http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ne290912Coverstory.asp

"Raman Singh retaliated by withdrawing all government advertisements to the newspaper. Patrika was barred from covering Assembly proceedings, its office was attacked by a mob of BJP workers, its reporters are almost never entertained by the ministers and bureaucracy for any information and the editor is never extended an invitation to an event presided over by the CM.

The witch-hunt didn’t end at that. The CM personally wrote a two-page note, terminating the services of the wife of Patrika’s state bureau chief — she was a Class III employee — on bogus charges. The file shows that the termination proceedings were initiated at the CM’s behest."

But instead of exposing how BJP is as culpable in destroying free media and is as responsible for the evil of paid media, he bashes people like Arvind Kejriwal calling him a moron and comparing him to Digvijay Singh. Kejriwal may have his faults, but he never sounds like a moron. Read how he explains the charge that Ravinar often levels against him -

http://tehelka.com/story_main54.asp?filename=Ws290912Politics.asp

"Why do people enter politics? Money from power and power from money. If I were only interested in making money, was an income tax job bad for me? A commissioner earns more than a Member of Parliament. If I were interested in power, it would have been very difficult for me to give up the post of a commissioner. You tell me if I were interested in power would it have been possible for me to do that. Some people say that you had decided all along to enter the political fray. It is very interesting. In September 2010 when I prepared the draft of Jan Lokpal Bill, I decided I will bring all these people together, then I will contact Anna, then Anna will sit on a fast on 4th April, a large crowd will gather, we will then form a draft committee who will betray us. We will then launch an agitation in August where the whole country will join us, then the Parliament will pass three proposals, then even the Parliament will betray us, and then I will form a political party. I wish I could make such strategy for the next three years."

I appreciate education about paid media (though I don't need it), but not the political bias which prevents Ravinar from writing about the muzzling of media by BJP governments.

Not very accurate... Most posts on this blog are about national TV and media. Naturally, most content is also about national politics in the media rather than states. Not surprisingly, you also wont find much about Kerala, Manipur or J&K or Andhra Pradesh etc. Besides, most readers would connect to national issues rather than individual issues pertaining to their state or other states.

Secondly, calling be biased is fine and doesnt bother me. In so many comments of yours in this particular post it is clearly evident that yours come out of a severe "sympathy" and bias in favour Kejriwal and Co. Which is fine too. I havent seen you posting so many agitated comments on any other post.

I would want Anjali Damania probed for her ownership of over 60 Acres of land which she claims has been bought/owned after selling her gold and breaking her FDs. For a Middle Class Lady like Anjali Damania that should have been substantial quantity of **Gold and FD** to liquidate to buy 60 acres of prime farm land in Maharashtra. BY any hypothetical calculations, an amount of no less than 12CR, i.e. with me being as generous as offering her an acre for 20 Lakhs, would have been required. That certainly raises eyebrows as to how she raised that much capital without any difficulty. Gold and FDs worth that much should have certainly attracted IT interests as well. In the absence of all this and one fine morning she jumps to the conclusion that her land has been exploited by Gadkari & Co is a bit far fetched. Her involvement in IAC is suspect since IAC itself is bereft of logic presently.

Nay, I smell rot in this Anjali Damania. Not because I have any particular predilection for Mr. Gadkari, but for the spontaneous germination of a mole called Anjali Damania.

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